Johanna Christina Joubert's Timeline

The camps were formed by the British army to house the residents of the two Boer republics of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. They were established towards the end of 1900, after Britain had invaded the Boer republics. This database was designed to investigate mortality and morbidity in the camps during the war. Although it will include everyone listed in the registers during the war, it usually excludes returning prisoners-of-war and men who came back from commando at the end of the war, as well as the considerable movement of people which took place after 31 May 1902, when families were repatriated to their homes.

Belfast was one of the later camps, started by the civilian administration rather than the military, between 4 and 10 June 1901.

The camp was finally closed in December 1902 after a land settlement scheme made it possible for the most indigent families to return to the land.

Middelburg camp presents a problem in trying to understand why so many people died in the camps. It was the largest camp in the Transvaal system, reaching over 7,000 inmates at one point, and the reports of Dr Kendal Franks and the Ladies Committee suggest that it was very badly run. Dr Franks was critical of the layout of the camp and complained that the administration was ‘lax’, while the Ladies Committee thought it ‘one of the most unsatisfactory we have seen’.1 An intake of over 3,000 in May 1901 brought in desperately impoverished and debilitated people, which precipitated disease. By all these criteria the mortality in Middelburg ought to have been amongst the worst in the system, yet this was not the case, as a comparison with Mafeking camp shows. Indeed, apart from the May peak (a pattern which appeared in almost all the camps) mortality was little worse than the camp average, which was a record few camps achieved.